Nunn School Associate Professor Margaret E. Kosal spoke on “Biological Weapons Nonproliferation for the 21st Century: A Shift of Responsibility from Nation-states to Individual Researchers?” at the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS) Annual meeting 23-24 October 2015, held at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. 

Kosal spoke on addressed the importance and role of science and technology for the 21st Century along with the recognition that emerging research – in such areas as biological sciences, the cognitive sciences, chemistry, and nanotechnology – offer potentially disruptive developments for national and international security. She discussed recent contentious research activities focusing on the recent controversy surrounding experiments on the H5N1 influenza virus and Do-It-Yourself Biology (DIY Bio) and efforts to limit potential misuse and to limit proliferation. Tacit and explicit shifts in responsibility for nonproliferation from the international community and nation-states to individual researchers are often the result.

Nonproliferation of biological weapons is a function of nation-states and the international community. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the international community and nation-states have struggled – and continue to do so – to deal with technologically-enabled proliferation challenges. Inadequacies in the international systems and in the international regimes, coupled with decisions and choices of individual states, have produced a tacit shift downward for limiting proliferation threats from biotechnology to specialized groups and increasingly to individuals. States are parties to international agreements with all the privileges and responsibilities therein. The introduction of these new technologies into modern warfare is expected to influence the application and interpretation of the existing rules of the law of armed conflict, including international security regimes like the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. 

Modern technological developments have the potential to be fundamentally transformative of the means and methods of warfare and of the broader environment in which warfare is conducted. In some cases, technological development has been stimulated by, and dedicated directly to, addressing military requirements. On other occasions, technological developments outside the military sphere affect or inform the conduct of warfare and strategy. The application of computing and software innovations has led to major changes in the military operations of developed nations, in terms of both offensive and defensive capabilities. Satellite navigation and global positioning systems have enabled the use of precision-guided munitions and the remote operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. The development of biotechnology, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and cognitive neuroscience herald the potential to create enhanced or novel weapons applications to include but not limited to biological and chemical warfare agents.

The Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS) is an international and interdisciplinary association of scholars, scientists, and policymakers concerned with evolutionary, genetic, and ecological knowledge and its bearing on political behavior, public policy, and ethics.